LadyGypsy.net – the blog of Kimberly Dowd of New Jersey

Good morning, my fellow Internetters. Here’s a bullet-point update as to what’s been going on. Breaking the writer’s block and all…

• Health & Human Services: WM’s been sick for over 2 weeks now with some bug, and everytime I think I’m coming down with it, it backs off. I’m actually rooting to get ill so I’ll get over the getting ill process already.
• Department of Labor: I am still employed; however, all Gannettoids have to take 5 mandatory unpaid days of in the first fiscal Quarter. So I’ll be sporadically unemployed through February and March. To be completely honest, at work I am incredibly busy and incredibly lonely at the same time. I miss everyone.
• Transportation & Travel: My W2 came in yesterday, but TurboTax was down. WM did his last week and is getting a tidy refund. With his tidy refund and my hopefully middling one, we may be stupid whimsical and go to Walt Disney World for a four-day weekend in May to celebrate his birthday. Long-time readers should note that will mark an 18-month WDW dry spell. Dad also sent us a $200 Southwest gift card, so I’ll be making another trip to the Sunshine state in the near future to visit him in Retired Guy land.
• Department of Wildlife: A mouse ran through our kitchen last Wednesday, freaking me out considerably. I twittered my reaction and the response was, “Don’t you have cats?” Yes, but they were sleeping at the time. I decided the mouse was inside because it was miserable and cold out and as long as he didn’t poop here, I’d be okay. I named him Remy. I heard him running through the walls, squeaking and I smiled, knowing he was okay. Saturday, we heard Charlie meowing from the kitchen. When we turned, we saw him slinking toward the bedroom, brown lifeless parcel in his mouth. RIP, Remy.
• Education: About 70% of my spare time is spent anymore with my nose in a PHP book or script. Every New Year I make the resolution to learn PHP & MySQL. Something clicked this time, and I can’t stop. I have scripts all over my computer with cryptic names like echoecho.php, pizza.php, pizzascraps.php, and loopdeloop.php. Most of them work, too! Although my beads are collecting dust, this can only mean good things for me. The downside is that I’m always at a computer anymore and my hermit tendencies are kicking in again. Always something…
• Department of the Exterior: On Friday, I glued fake nails on in an attempt to kick the biting habit again. So far, so good, but it’s really hard to work the iPhone!
• Environment: Yesterday it felt like spring and I was happy. Today it is snowing and I feel duped.

I have to be AT WORK in 26 minutes, so time to pull out the hot rollers and get a move on. I’m still humming “Jungle Love,” by the way. Oh ee oh ee oh!

I don’t touch on the age difference between WM and me often. Ninety-seven percent of the time it’s a complete non-issue. Of the remaining 3 percent, 1 percent is when I realize he’s the same age as my brother and his friends. The other two percent is when I chat about music I liked growing up, and he doesn’t know it.

Case in point: About 2 weeks ago…

Me: Do you know what song I have in my head?
WM: No.
Me: Jungle love.
WM: Wha?
Me: Jungle love! (singing, poorly) Jungle Love! Yeah! Oh ee oh ee oh. Girl I wanna show ya, show ya!**
WM: …
Me: And there’s monkey noises in it too.
WM: I’m sorry…I was never into 80′s music.
Me: Okay. Whatever (to self) Yeah! oh ee oh ee oh…

Fast forward to this past Saturday. I’m working on my PHP book, like a good little mid-life career focus-changer, and WM’s flipping through the TV. The last third of Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back is on, so he stops to watch. At the end of the movie…(warning:f-bombs in the video)

And I immediately start squealing “Jungle Love! It’s Jungle Love! That’s the song! Oh ee oh ee oh!!” And he remembered that was the song I was talking about way back when and recognizes it and life was, again, good.

**In writing this post, I just realized that one if the lines in the song is…
“I, I drive a little dangerous” and not “I, I drive like Danger Mouse.”

Yeah, it’s a real stereotype-a-rama. Featuring lines like:

…as if there was this voice whispering at me most of the time we were together saying, She’s 35—don’t stay with this girl unless you’re serious about settling down with her. I know that sounds crazy, but I assumed, given the biological facts of life, that she didn’t have time to waste on a casual relationship.

And maybe I’m hypersensitive about it (I’m 35, WM’s 29) but while I do want a child and feel sad that my window for that is closing sooner rather than later, my getting into this relationship did not hinge on whether WM wanted kids sooner, later, or at all.

The “How much does age matter when dating?” story actually talks about dating younger people when you’re over 50.

In less-vitriolic news, I bought a bunch of fresh basil today from Wegmans. I want to freeze it, but many of the freezing “recipes” feature chopping it with olive oil and freezing it in ice cube trays. I wonder if the olive oil will cause future uses to become too fatty.

I bought “Twilight” yesterday, primarily because a lot of the bloggers I read have been loving it. I tore through 295 pages in one sitting. I love vampire stories – used to adore Anne Rice’s stuff until it got religious and weird. The best part is I’m so late to this bandwagon that there are two (and soon to be three) books AFTER this one! And a movie coming out in December!

This afternoon I’m off to Michael’s with Mom to look at beads (I have a coupon!), then maybe look for a cute pair of black kitten heel slides.

Prior experiences with MSN:
June 6, 2008: Screw you (again) MSN
May 1, 2008: Writer, activist, Cougar
April 5, 2008: April 5, 2008 (creative post title, there)
February 13, 2008: Still loving my MSN homepage
October 14, 2007: Thanks MSN. Have some Cheetos.